Rebecca Mead is a New Yorker writer who has been making the rounds shilling her new book, One Perfect Day on the "marriage industrial complex" (everything sounds better with "industrial complex" tacked onto it, doesn't it? Sorta makes you pine for the days when American politicians were allowed to critique the AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE. Anyhow!).

Anyway, In an interview with Salon Rebecca shares her favorite bridal magazines (InStyle Weddings and the trade publication Vows) and explains that the fundamental problem with the wedding business is not that it isn't feminist — hiring a wedding planner "could totally be construed as a post-feminist act" (!!) but rather, the consumerism of the whole thing:

One of my favorite pieces [in Vows] described how to market to the "nontraditional bride" and warned readers that this kind of woman is dangerously apt to "forget the wedding and prepare for marriage." These articles were often unintentionally hilarious, but also very chilling. People who work in the wedding business often appear to be very warm and sentimental, but they're salespeople, and the successful ones are completely coldblooded about it.

Okay, but why are all our friends so goddamned susceptible to these reptilian salesbots? Doesn't our generation have enough experience with, uh, men to know better?